


The Heavy Weight of the Human Heart

by GretchenSinister



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M, Memories, Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 11:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "In the books, before Pitch was the King of Nightmares he was a soldier who guarded the prison they were kept in. He had a daughter and a real life.I would loooove to see a fic where Jack meets the old Pitch. Maybe it’s an AU where he was never consumed by darkness and went on to become the Guardian of Courage (you can’t have courage and bravery without fear). Maybe Pitch sees something that reminds him of who he used to be. Shit, maybe the good General somehow travels through time and sees what he will become. I don’t know. I just want Jack (and the other Guardians) to see the good in the Boogie Man.And then sex happens, duh."Okay, so apparently my superpower is turning blackice prompts into blacksand fics? I promise it makes sense and fills the prompt though. Jack meets Kozmotis in a dream after asking Sandy who Pitch was before he was Pitch.
Relationships: Kozmotis Pitchiner/Sanderson Mansnoozie
Kudos: 12
Collections: The Kozmotis Collection





	The Heavy Weight of the Human Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 5/12/2013.

“I’ve asked all the others already, and they don’t know,” Jack begins, a small whirlwind holding him in place near Sandy’s cloud of dreamsand. “They’re all too young. But Tooth said she thought you might know, though you’ve never, uh, said, anything about it.”

Sandy smiles at him and pats the dreamsand cloud. Jack sends the wind on its way and floats down next to Sandy.

_What was it that you wanted to know?_ Sandy signs to him. He uses ASL around Jack, in concession to the young Guardian’s understandable frustration with ambiguous communication.

“Well, it’s something I’ve been thinking about since Easter, since I learned who I was before…Tooth said every one of us was somebody before we became Guardians. And now I wonder…was Pitch also somebody before he was the Boogeyman? And that’s what none of the others can say for certain.”

_He was,_ Sandy answers simply, looking up at the stars. _I was there. I knew him before he became Pitch Black._

“When was this? What was he like? I want to know all about him—I mean, how did he get the way he is? Did you know him well?”

_Yes, I knew him well._ Sandy’s smile at Jack is unknowable as the ocean floor. _He was a great man. A general. The bravest and best of the Golden Age. In his electrum armor he shone like the sun._

“And?” Jack asks. “Tell me more. How could someone so great become so terrible? Was he not really great? Was it all a show? Did he have awful secrets?”

Sandy shakes his head. _He only had one secret, and he kept it for another’s sake. As for his becoming terrible…only the great can become terrible, Jack. To make someone like Pitch, only the Golden General Kozmotis Pitchiner would do._

“He was made, then? On purpose?”

_Supposedly not. I have my suspicions. We were long-lived in the Golden Age, Jack, and our games were very slow. And we always pretended they wouldn’t end. We deliberately forgot our own legends of a previous Golden Age and its end, said ours was the only one—our hubris was staggering._

_I’m sorry. You wanted to know about Koz—Kozmotis—The General._

“Yeah…but maybe you can tell me more about that other stuff some other time?”

_And just talk about the General now._ Sandy takes a deep breath. _Forgive me, Jack. It’s difficult. I knew him for a long time and I don’t talk much. When I get away from the sweeping statements, the impressions, I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know what others would want to know. You’re the first one to ask._ Does he want to know a list of the battles in which General Pitchiner led his troops to victory? Does he want to know the kind of jokes he laughed at? Sandy had told him a horrifically stupid one at a grand party once and maybe that was the axis around which the whole saga turned…Does he want to know how he looked with messy hair, stirring cube after cube of sugar into his morning tea, reaching around in the bowl for another but finding it empty, his daughter’s quick fingers having filched it an instant before? They were both such sweet tooths. Does he want to know how he mourned for his wife? How he mourned for her every day, at the strangest moments?

“You can begin anywhere,” Jack says, nodding at him encouragingly.

Sandy looks down at his hands. _After being as I am for so long, all words seem clumsy things. If I say, a picnic on the crimson grass of Aeterna Park, does that convey heartbreak? Of course not. If I say, a thin golden chain ten feet long and still warm as skin, does that tell you anything about—_Sandy frowns and shakes his head.

“You could have me dream about him—Kozmotis Pitchiner, you said his name was?”

_It will not bring you joy._ Sandy signs matter-of-factly.

“That’s all right. I’ve got plenty as myself. There’s just something about Pitch—I feel like there’s more to him, and you know what that more is! I don’t know, maybe it sounds stupid, but I thought maybe he’s the way he is because he’s kind of like how I was. Alone. Maybe he doesn’t know who he is either. I know my snowball didn’t work on him during the battle but maybe…maybe he could be helped if we all knew more?”

Sandy raises his hands as if to say something, but seems to think better of it and begins a different sequence. _I will send you a dream of Kozmotis Pitchiner. You will need to stay on the cloud to sleep though._

Jack nods and curls up. Sandy gently blows dreamsand into his eyes, and Jack can feel himself falling away into sleep…

…and there are space battles and parades and medals from royalty and a beautiful lady in sky blue dancing with a lean and hawk-nosed man at some great fete and a little girl in green who looks like that lady and that man and she is somersaulting in red grass while the man watches indulgently and then a message comes to him on his communicator and he reads it and the blue sky is full of pain and there are more battles and there is electrum armor, oh how it dazzles, will the gaze of the man inside strike him dead? And there is another party and he is talking to the man Kozmotis Koz Kozzy That’s General to you but he says something else and the man laughs and how lovely is that smile when it’s not cruel and the girl reappears but she’s taller now and there are strange flickering elisions and there are long-fingered hands and fire that does not burn the things it touches (except of course it does, of course of course) and flowers made of candy and the sweetest water in the world that doesn’t quench his thirst…

…and then the images slow down and Jack dreams himself walking through a beautiful airy house, all breezeways and sunlight and white curtains, and this is Kozzy’s house or Kozzy and this is a dream so not “or” but “and”. “Kozzy?” He calls, and he doesn’t recognize his voice. He wants to call something else now but he can’t—why not he knows he’s dreaming—and suddenly he begins to think that this is not a dream but a

memory

and he looks into bright sunny rooms, not worried but impatient, Sera’s out for the day what kind of game is Kozzy playing and finally he finds him reclining on a chaise lounge, tea at hand, calm as you please save for the bit of blush that touches the long slight curve of his neck, he’ll never manage to be coy when he can’t help looking like that but Generals don’t need to be coy do they and Jack goes over to the chaise and climbs on next to Kozzy and begins to kiss that blush and the pulse that begins to flutter stronger under golden skin oh what horror that it should ever be gray and as he presses a war hero who’s biting his lip into the cushions he become more aware of his dream-body and Jack finds he is shorter and more rounded than he knows himself to be and if this is a memory oh he has no right to stay though how he does want to as Kozzy flicks out his tongue and traces the curves of his ear oh how…

Jack forces himself awake. Sandy’s back is to him, dreamsand flowing from his outstretched hands.

“Sandy…”

He turns, his face perfectly calm. _That is what I can tell you about Kozmotis Pitchiner, who would be Pitch Black._

“He was…I was…you were…you and him…and I was there…I…I miss him, Sandy. And I never even knew him. After one dream. How do you stand it? You loved him, and he loved you, it was everywhere, it was in the walls!”

_Forgive me if I showed you anything you were uncomfortable with_.

Jack laughs a little. “You mean you wouldn’t have minded if I had stayed asleep? I wanted to, but anyway I think you’ve managed to convince me that I don’t have a chance while you’re around.”

Sandy smiles. _Not with Kozzy._ His face grows solemn. _But Kozzy is dead, as is the man who loved him._

“But if he remembered…” 

_I would be left with no Boogeyman. I miss Kozzy as I’ve shown you, when I feel like Sanderson. But more often than not I am the Sandman, these days. I deal in mutability, in things easily forgotten. Things strange and beautiful and illusory. I no longer wish for a Golden Age and its sureties. My wish for Kozzy is one I know will never be granted. But others have been, and others may be. Let not our long-gone human hearts weigh too heavily on you, Jack. I just thought it might help you to begin to understand._

“Understand what? I feel more confused than ever.”

Sandy tilts his head to the side. _Just understand a little bit more of everything, I suppose. Come back tomorrow and I’ll try to explain._

“Think I will,” Jack says, before letting the wind carry him away once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> emeraldembers reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
Oh, my heart. This is utterly and thoroughly perfect. I want to shove my head into the monitor and drown in your writing, it’s so, so, so evocative and this is just lovely - Sandy’s quiet, sad acceptance of his loss, and Jack’s reaction to that are just so spot on for their characters. It’s lovely. And the idea that his armour is electrum just asfasdfasdfa god, you have such a handle on imagery.
> 
> xxdaimonxx said: *totally loves that superpower*
> 
> lithefider said: The stream of consciousness wore me out a little haha but nnnngg oh man that is so sad ;3; a nice vision of Koz and Sandy, and aww Jack…yes always write all the blacksand please.


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